The Scales Are Broken
by Thick Soup
Summary: Symbolism is a strong thing.


Written for Folklore: Folk Stories Task 1 (write about someone breaking the law) of the Hogwarts Challenge group.

Warnings: Slight Profanity, Odd Ideas, and a bunch of half-assed metaphors.

 **Line break**

The law was an inherently broken system, Themis thought.

The concept of law was completely fine; the execution of said concept was not.

A system comprised of rules that restricted actions so as to ensure relative peace within a closed or semi-open area had proven in the past to be, sadly, necessary, but since the Ministry started taking the law by the letter instead of by the spirit, good people with largely good intentions had been condemned to harsh "punishments", while the people who set to use others for their own superlatively bad goals were let off, provided they contributed a completely voluntary donation to any Ministry-based charity, of course.

A case in point, thought Themis as she set about obtaining the materials, was Percival Dumbledore.

All he had tried to do was protect his daughter from a group of children who were "bullying" her, except that bullying did not lead to young witches permenantly losing control over their own magic.

Although Dumbledore had used rather harsh and unnecessary methods to do so, he definitely did not deserve Azkaban.

While we're on the subject, Themis formulated while formulating the ritual circle, Azkaban should be illegal.

Even though Azkaban is typically used as a prison for life imprisoned inmates, the usage of Azkaban for shorter sentences, such as in the case of Rubeus Hagrid, who was imprisoned due to suspicion of releasing the Basilisk of Slytherin, was cruel and inhumane, much like the general idea of using soul-sucking emotivores to patrol Azkaban.

In fact, Azkaban could be considered to be torture, due to its poor amenities, low quality food, lack of semi-freedom for inmates, and presence of insanity-causing dementors.

To use it for imprisonment of criminals who had commited the most worst of crimes is justifiable, but barely. To use it for imprisonment of anything else is grounds for, at the very least, the dissolvment of whichever body of law that sent them there, and the payment of massive reimbursements for the prisoner.

And those were just the tip of the massive iceberg.

Having finished her musing and her preparation, Themis took out her wand.

"Derigo."

Her wand shuddered, before giving out a grey stream of light which illuminated the apparatus in front of it.

Themis nodded. She was justified. It was time.

As a final precaution, she looked once more at the torn manuscript that depicted the ritual.

" _Be one with who it is_ , the name change should suffice; _have one of what it is_ , the scales; _have strength for what it is..._ " she muttered to herself as she checked through the list.

After a minute of careful scrutinising, she nodded. All was right.

Themis picked up a pair of brass scales and a wooden hammer and gavel from the cold granite floor before proceeding to move into the heart of the ritual circle.

She then placed down the hammer, and made sure to balance the scales by its bottom.

She took a deep breath, the hand supporting the gavel trembling slightly.

" **Sanguine vas**."

She heard a snap, and felt a sinking feeling. She could feel the shards of wand shifting in her sleeve, and the feeling of it nearly made her weep.

And she did. But not for the wand.

Coils of white grey energy streamed out of her wand shards like snakes out of a can. They flung themselves wildly around the air, bouncing off an invisible wall dictated by the carvings on the floor. A small Hum started, soft as first, then loud, but always portraying a sense of resolute.

The amount of ambient magic in the room rose to a higher enough intensity that Themis' bones started to vibrate in their fixed positions.

She started to feel something encroaching. Her core started to pull towards it, making a tugging feeling towards the entity.

She held her items aloft. "Stop," she said in a soft voice.

The feeling paused. **"Quis es."**

The feeling intoned it as a statement.

"Themis," she answered.

And the feeling said, _ **"Lacet. Quis es."**_

Themis frowned, tightening her grip around the items. "Themis."

The feeling started encroaching again. _**"Lacet. Tu es patientia mea conatur. Quis. Es."**_

This time, Themis snapped back, "Numquid non audisti me? Ego Themis, Dea est Lex, Inter mortales iustitie. _**Vide et know**_."

The last few words that came out of her mouth came out as naturally as water flowed. She felt the feeling crumple.

 _ **"Ego vide et agnoscis. Receperint retro, Themis."**_

The feeling retreated.

The threads of magic simutaniously flung themselves at the scales and the gavel, wrapping themselves around them. The leftover threads curled downwards and winded on Themis' arms.

She felt a rush of power, a rush of steel, a rush of stillness. She felt her wrinkles receding, her frail body regenerating, her stature straightening. She felt the items glow with heat, and her vision went dark, her eyes absorbed back into her body.

In other words, she felt like she did when she was twenty. She could feel adrenaline run through her veins, in a near-constant, uninterrupted flow, energising her beyond the most highest state of wakefulness she had ever experience. The drug marched through her, leaving nothing but scorched ground and pain.

Still, she did not cry.

Above all, however, was the sense of stillness.

It was like a rubber band, pulled to its limits and suddenly snapped back. Chaotic at first, lashing out sometimes, but equalising, in the end.

And like a rubber band, was the sense of stillness, and the knowledge that came with it.

Themis knew. She knew the why, the what, the who, the when, the where, the how. She knew, and knew beyond all doubt the true meaning of **right** and **wrong**.

And she knew. She knew the full consequence of what she had done, and what she was going to do. Yet, all she felt was stillness. An unending ocean of calm, of empty tranquility, of nihilism.

She knew. She knew what was, but for that, could never be what was.

And for that, she wept.

But h̶e̶r̶ its body did not.

It moved, and Themis felt its **need** to bring itself back.

But Themis did not let Themis.

The hammer on the ground flew into its awaiting hand.

Themis felt the world, and the world felt her. She lifted the scales, and the world moved with her.

It tried to stop her.

She didn't stop.

The scales moved, but the hammer did not. So, she crushed the world.

" _Ex Nihilo, nihil est_."

The scales warped into itself and out much like the world did, and crumbled into dust.

It felt as though a sledgehammer had been brought upon her skull at full speed, blurring her senses and ringing her ears. The metaphorical sledgehammer was followed by a paraphysical ice pick which pierced through the haze its predecessor had set, leaving a small hole of clarity.

This time, she did not weep, but the vessel did.

 **Line break**

 _Department of Regulations (A Branch of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement)_ was what was written on the walls.

The words themselves portrayed a sense of order, an implication of higher hierarchy and a hint of internally-metaphorically-dead bureaucrats.

In front of the wall, however, everyone and everything was going absolutely bananas.

"Madame, there's been reports of Akira-type magick spikes all over the world."

The worker that had just delivered the message was one of the many the Head of Department was currently listening to as she riffled through her numerous file storages.

She extracted a particularly large file labeled " _Case Black-Descent: Appropriate Responses_ " in a triumphant flourish.

The Head of Department flipped through the multiple laminated folders, before rubbing her eyes and flipping through them again.

There was no mistaking it.

The words were disappearing as she read them.

By the second turnover, there was naught but clean, crisp white paper.

"What the hell is going on?" she muttered to herself as she thumbed through the previously vellum manuscript yet again.

"Madame."

The voice made her freeze in her place.

"It has been confirmed. All legalised laws and regulations on any formal scale are being rapidly erased from any sort of medium, be they written, recorded, scent-logged or taste-logged. Any information, including information stored in memory, that is capable of being used for the reestablishment of said laws and regulations are being expunged by an unknown entity or event. It is estimated that, within the next six hours, all systems in relation to laws will be completely and utterly destroyed, beyond any trace of possible retrieval."

The voice paused, and she took the chance to wet her suddenly dry lips.

"You are hereby released from your duty. Thank you for your years of service to the Ministry, Madame. Good luck, and may Merlin guide you."

She stared at the document that had marked the start of this all. An innocent-looking standardised report of an illegal ritual that just stayed there, laid on her desk.

The previous, and last, Head of Department sighed, and took out a cigar.

She lighted it, and took a deep draught.

For the first time in the six decades she had committed to this vocation, she was at a lost.

 **Line break**

The Lady Without A Name stared at what she had wrought emotionlessly.

 _ **"Do You See?"**_

She turned towards Themis, the true Themis, goddess of justice.

She nodded silently.

 _ **"Was it worth it?"**_

She turned back towards the world, and saw the order of the world being held together, if barely, by the stitching laid so intricately and carefully by the thing behind her.

She saw what she had already known would have been there, and turned back towards the blind deity.

She nodded.

And it nodded back.

 _ **"Then I have nothing more to say."**_

 _ **"Finish what you set out to accomplish."**_

She nodded one last time.

 _"Avada Kedavra."_

And Justice fell like a tree that nobody saw fall, the world falling with it in its non-silent wake.

 **Line break**

 _This was honestly quite a big mess. No idea where I was going with this, honestly._

 _~Thick Soup_


End file.
